Personalized watercraft are manual and motorized floatable craft intended to carry one or more persons, typically less than five people, on the surface of a body of water. Viewing FIG. 1, various circumstances for docking and undocking a personalized watercraft from a transportation trailer, as well as mounting and dismounting a personalized watercraft, are shown. Typically, a trailer 112 upon which the watercraft 110 is secured is connected to a vehicle 114 at a hitch 116 to transport the watercraft 110. The vehicle 114 is backed down a slanted ramp 118 into the water 120 and this already creates one of myriad of potentially difficult situations: depending upon the vehicle 114, it may be difficult for the driver of the vehicle 114 to observe the trailer 112 and the personal watercraft 110 when backing up. The ramp 118 may have a shallow or a severe slope of different surfaces ranging from slippery wet muddy earth to gently sloped ridged concrete; in any event, the surface is wet and usually slippery. The wheels 122 of the vehicle 114 may lose traction, especially when the vehicle is backed into the water too far or too deep. Although the trailer 112 sinks into the water 120, the rear 124 of the personal watercraft is buoyant and typically moves sideways on the surface of the water 120 requiring physical effort on the part of a the driver or a second person to keep the personal watercraft aligned. The trailer 112, moreover has metal surfaces with hard sharp edges that can hurt the user and/or cause damage to the hull of the personal watercraft. In the meantime, a user who is anxious to get into the water 120, must enter the water to load and unload the personal watercraft 110 and then crawl or jump onto the trailer with hard and sharp angles and surfaces to board the watercraft 110. Additionally, because the trailer is wet metal, it is slippery in the water.
Returning the watercraft 110 to the trailer 112 has the same risks discussed above and then some: the personal watercraft 110 must be quickly secured onto the trailer 112 using a hand winch 126 or it will slide backwards and sideways (yaw) in the water 120; if no other person is available, the user must dismount the personal watercraft 110 and maneuver around the slippery hard and sharp edged metal of the trailer 112. The user may be exhausted from spending a hot sunny day on the water; or bad weather may increase the dangers. The risk of injury and lack of convenience is great.
There is thus a need for a different watercraft transport system that solves many of the problems stated above.